220 NEIGHBORS WITH CLAWS AND HOOFS. 



ground. The tedium of camel-riding is its sluggishness, 

 for although the beasts can trot so that the sultans and 

 the caliphs have dispatched expresses in eight days from 

 Cairo to Damascus, yet the trot of the usual traveling- 

 camel is very hard. The pasha's El Shiraz had a suffi- 

 ciently pleasant trotting gait; bat MacWhirter's exer- 

 tions in that kind shook my soul within me. 



11. " Yet with all this the effect of the motion of the 

 camel, separated from his awkward and ridiculous form 

 and its details, is stately and dignified ; so much so, in- 

 deed, that the imagination would select him first as the 

 bearer of a dignitary in a pageant. Covered with long, 

 sweeping draperies, which should conceal him entirely, 

 and his rounded hump spread with heavy carpets, he pre- 

 sents a moving throne for a caliph or a sultan in his des- 

 ert progress of dignity unsurpassed. The rider sits su- 

 preme above the animal and over the earth, and the long, 

 languid movement harmonizes with the magnificent mo- 

 notony of the scene." 



12. Bayard Taylor also writes : " I found dromedary- 

 riding not at all difficult. One sits on a very lofty seat, 

 with his feet crossed over the animal's shoulders or resting 

 on his neck. The body is obliged to rock backward and 

 forward on account of the long, swinging gait, and as 

 there is no stay or fulcrum except a blunt pommel, around 

 which the legs are crossed, some little power of equilib- 

 rium is necessary. My dromedary was a strong, stately 

 beast of a light cream color, and so even of gait that it 

 would bear the Arab test, that is, one might drink a cup 

 of coffee while going on a full trot without spilling a 

 drop. 



13. " I^found a great advantage in the use of the Ori- 

 ental costume. My trousers allowed the legs perfect free- 

 dom of motion, and I soon learned so many different 



